Eternal
by Constance Greene
Summary: Kairiku Collection — 04. Gay rainbow mittens and snow bring friends together.
1. paopu tree

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a c o l l e c t i o n o f k a i r i k u ( k a i r i x r i k u ) d r a b b l e s & o n e s h o t s

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a**.u **t**h**o**r **'**s **n**.o **t**e**;;  
_T_hese shall most likely not be related in any way but the pairing they include.  
_K_ingdom Hearts does not belong to me. Your pants do.  
_A_nd remember children: Kairiku not only equals life, but is _greater_ than life.

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**_e_ T E R N A L  
**kairiku collection x;  
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**i** . _paopu tree _;;

White-yellow rays of brilliance projected from the heavens and hurtled down onto earth, illuminating Destiny Islands with a halo of warmth. The vegetation looked much greener than it would at night or sunset, when the light (or lack there of) marred or obscured its natural lush emerald hues. The children would see the plants and trees and plunge themselves into a world of imagination, and they would suddenly become jungle explorers, blundering through dense verdure like dazed individuals who spent too much time looking at the sun. In fact, they did just that. Sora, Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus had ventured out not long before to the tropical areas of the isle, where sand switched to dirt that could barely be seen beneath tangles of weeds and grass. May God help whoever they deemed worthy of leader in their expedition.

This rather abrupt adventure Riku did not decide to partake in. The pastime allowed him to lapse into a blissful solitude where he couldn't care less that he was alone. The thirteen year-old sat on his crooked paopu tree, idly gazing off across the solid cerulean plane of ocean and at the bleached horizon. He was careful not to directly stare at the sun, however – and we all know what happened to Sora when he did so.

"Hey Riku, is it nighttime?"

It was most certainly not nighttime. It was noon.

"Because I'm seeing stars."

Sora was not able to attend school the next day because he caught a nasty case of pinkeye. When he came home, he had made it clear that he'd chosen to become albino and refused all of Riku's claims that he had watched the sun for so long, henceforth frying the whites of his eyes and turning them raw. Somehow, that fact was too graphic for Sora to accept.

Riku liked the paopu tree because it gave him a sense of security. Even though its trunk was sunken and depressed, there was a filmy aura around it like a blanket that enveloped him with comfort whenever he wanted to get lost in something. At the moment, he was currently lost in a daydream. I won't tell you what his daydream was about, but what happens next will leave little to one's pondering mind.

"Riku!"

He seemed to float out from his reverie like a soul departing from the body and turned his chin to the side. It guided his turquoise vision down the strip of beach where Kairi was, not too occupied with getting out of her boat on account of her waving hand. Nearly absent minded he offered her a slight smile and waited for her to walk over.

She did, but it was more like a leisurely stroll after she got tired from running on the loose sand where he shoes sunk into the billions of shell fragments and held on. After a close call of tripping, and some shared chuckles (giggling on her part, and Riku was just being kind by showing amusement – all thought it _was_ somewhat funny), the girl with short burgundy hair paused at the tree base and placed a hand on the trunk, pale against pale.

"Hi, Riku."

"Hi, Kairi."

Kairi never seemed quite as bubbly without Sora or Selphie around to aid her. Their happiness was contagious. Riku sometimes found himself regrettably wondering if it was he who caused her dampening mood.

"Help me up?" Riku bit back his tongue, which was ready to lash out with something bitterly joking: _You aren't a baby anymore. _He looked into her water drop eyes and realized she was just too innocent to deny, and that, on second thought, he'd be glad to comply to her every need.

He hopped off his perch temporarily and cupped his hands around her petite waist, using strong arms to hoist her up on where he had been sitting moments before. She giggled into her fist like a little kid and swung her bony legs that were miles from the ground, content.

The boy returned to her side, using his palms to push himself up next to her. With a faint smile toying on her lips, she watched the sun while Riku thought of how horribly typical it was to do so.

"Where's Sora and the others?" She sweetly put out in the open. _Now that you've got that over with._

"Around. Playing, somewhere. I don't know." He sounded remotely unconcerned and disinterested with the younger kids' wanderings. He had stopped playing jungle explorers years ago.

"Mmm," The legs swung with more viciousness now, as if Kairi thought she could chop the air in half. It was dreadfully obvious that she wanted to say something but was waiting for Riku's allowance of such trivialness.

"So, how're you, Kairi?" His question slipped from his mouth easily, because it meant nothing.

Kairi noticed this as her key to begin. "You know, I always wondered what it'd be like to have a paopu fruit." Her eyes had moved and locked onto the cluster of the yellow fruit nestled beneath the palm tree-like leaves a distance away.

Being the extremely educated teen that he was in paopu fruit facts and information, Riku stated, "If you share it with someone, they say your destinies will become intertwined." Of course, he didn't believe such mushy nonsense. He could predict that there were other worlds out there, but that was about the extent of his idealism. Esoterically, he wished he could share one with a certain girl whose name is quite obvious, as she was sitting right next to him at the present time.

Said girl sighed, shoulders falling delicately. "I know. Too bad they're too high to reach . . ."

She really looked crestfallen. An idea popped into his head – brilliant only to himself. "Huh, I could climb it," He declared as he looked up at the treetop with a determined expression on his face.

Kairi seemed to brighten a little, but still remained dubious. "Really?"

"Sure." Riku stood up on the tree branch suddenly, surprising the girl aged twelve last November, and looked down at her like a regal statue would to any passerby. "Do you doubt The Great Riku?"

Releasing a chortle, her cheeks blushed. "You sound like Sora."

Turning away from her and focusing his attention on the tree, he scowled. Riku then wrapped both arms around the trunk as though taking it into an embrace and began to climb. His shoes made scuffling noises until he was no longer using primarily his feet but his arms to inch his way up. From below, Kairi gasped quietly in unveiled admiration.

Riku felt like he was literally on top of the world. It felt good, it felt great, and the best thing of all was that Kairi was watching him and he impressed her. No one could deny that it took skills to climb this paopu tree like a native islander, the ones that went out each day and scaled coconut trees for the ripe, sweet fruit at the top. _Do I remind you of Sora now, Kairi? He'd never be able to do this._

He'd be able to do this, though.

All at once, Riku felt himself slipping. His soft hands slid from the virtually textureless tree trunk, ergo causing him to spin around and putting him in a position away from the ground and over the water. With a short yell, he fell and disappeared into the shallow cyan depths.

Kairi's ululation echoed throughout the deserted isle, and she clambered off the tree and ran across the bridge and down the steps and on the beach

(_o god i hope he's not hurt i hope i didn't **kill him**_)

and down on the shore. What she thought she'd see in her panic would be Riku's drowned body floating on the surface (or sunken to the bottom, she had never seen what a corpse did in water), but instead she saw him splashing in the water and getting up, quite alive. She cried out again, this time in relief.

He came to her dripping, dark navy blue pants sagging around his ankles and bloated like jellyfish. She reached out to him, as if to touch him.

"Are you okay?"

Riku shook his head in impatience. It was just a little drop that had been broken by water.

His hands that had been hiding behind his back came into view. One of them he outstretched, and in his palm he held a large, five-pointed paopu fruit.

At first she was mystified; then her eyes twinkled and she smiled despite herself.

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	2. hair cut

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**_e_ T E R N A L  
**kairiku collection x;  
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**ii** . _hair-cut _;;

One of the first things Kairi wanted to do upon returning home was to cut Riku's hair.

She came armed to his house the next day, scissors in hand. When Riku opened the door, he was tangled between two instantaneous conclusions: either Kairi had suffered from mental illness while they were away and converted to regularly practicing psychopathic rituals, or he had agreed to some kind of project yesterday without meaning to.

Whichever one it was, he didn't open the door a crack wider than the tenuous fissure that revealed only his face and a line of body to the girl standing on the porch.

"Kairi, what's up?" He felt his palm beginning to grow moist on the round doorknob. It was highly likely that he was perspiring because of what he (secretly) dreaded Kairi was plotting, but that was not the only thing on his mind. It had been a while since they had been with each other on a regular, _normal_ basis. Now it was just like the old days whenever she came over to his house – except following puberty.

Her eyes fixed on what was up: his hair. It had become much _fluffier_, along with lengthier, so that it was almost poofy. The tumble of blue-tinctured hair gnawed on her nerves and to herself she saw it as remarkably feminine. She could barely see his iceberg eyes behind the curtain that was his bangs.

"Come in." The moment of groping silence made up for an 'er' or 'um' before that statement. The door opened. He was safe; for now.

He stood back to let her by (it wasn't exactly necessary, as her frame was so slight that she could have passed as a specter gliding through a wall into the room) and curiously ducked into the hallway.

In a quiet way, they mutually agreed that it had indeed been a long time.

Kairi, however, was partially used to seeing Riku's household at its current state. During the two boys' absence she began to visit their houses, at first to simply comfort and reassure their worried guardians. Then she started to come over more frequently and roam the hallways where they had played for so many years, in rooms that were collecting dust and forgetfulness. Her visits soon became sleepovers with herself and the phantasms of the male keyblade wielders, their parents allowing it though with worried looks plastered on their faces, or quiet, sympathetic tones in their voices.

Kairi liked Riku's place the most, with his tranquil room of soft blue hues by the ocean, always kept immaculate with or without his mother there to fret over it. Her trips to the other missing boy's house ceased, mainly because her memory of him had likewise: but now she was beginning to become convinced that she preferred the platinum-headed teen's residence more so than the brunette's after lying on his covers countless times and staring up at the ceiling without really seeing it. Instead, she'd see all those times spent in that room that she could remember and count in her head if she wanted to. All of this was done without Riku's knowledge, and who knew – perhaps it'd stay that way as her little secret (though she wanted to tell – girls weren't good at making promises to themselves).

His parents weren't home. As much as they wanted to be with their son who was gone for more than a year, they had to eventually succumb to more necessary tasks. Such tasks included clothes shopping for a boy who has grown nearly a foot taller than the rest of his friends, and grocery shopping for an extra stomach to feed once again. Riku pushed the going to the mall offer for later and stayed home instead to basically snack on what _was_ available (which wasn't much). It was as though he somehow foretold Kairi's visit.

In fact, a small crinkled bag of potato chips had appeared in his hand, and he crunched noisily on the paper-thin slices of salt-and-oil goodness. After a moment of consideration, Kairi revolved around to face him, and in turn he offered her some Lay's. Her crystalline blue eyes blinked for she had not expected this act of kindness, and then she simply classified it as inevitable. With a delicate shake of her head and wave of her hand (still holding the lethal object in it – Riku ducked as its sharpened point swung past his skull), the one dressed in pink refused.

"You never used to like junk food, Riku," She hoped he hadn't transformed into Sora, the King of All That Provides Cavities. Candies, desserts, snacks; you name it, he ate it. It was a wonder he remained so thin, all though the credit most likely went to a high metabolism and his strenuous journeys. "It makes you fat."

"You never used to bring knives to my house without explaining their purpose here." He quipped, anon glancing down at his slim stomach. "Wait, fat?" Albeit the truth would come fifteen years from now, a smile was attained on her face at Riku's incredulous expression, cheeks still full of half-grounded and processed bulbous root.

She waved her hand once more in attenuate impatience. "Oh, this?" The harmlessness was not quite reassuring. Kairi's visage suddenly turned sneaky, stepping back down to business. "C'mon." Little warning or no, she still snatched his wrist and dragged him towards his bedroom, guiding and steering him through the corridors, the knotty action reminding him of a cattle drive. His feeling of apprehension increased. On the way he left a trail of potato chips as they dribbled from the up-turned sack onto the cream-coloured carpet. Maybe the trail of breadcrumbs would aid his escape. Half-way to their destination, Riku eventually gave up and dropped the bag, simulating kissing the hope of redemption goodbye.

He paused outside the doorway, heels sinking into the rug and forcing Kairi to halt with him, as she could no longer pull weight that was determined to remain at rest. "What is this about, Kairi?" His suspicion was nearly made out into a snarl that caused her to recoil. She frowned in return, trying to match his very masculine sneer though only succeeding on contorting her face in contemplative anguish. She raised her hand; it reached out and yanked a lock of his silvery hair that was past his shoulders.

"I'm just going to cut your hair." When he griped, she whined. Her innocuous statement was intertwined with incorruption; but one could never be too sure. Especially Riku, as he thought, drinking in the threat of sharpened objects made into projectiles shooting towards his way. Though, as he recalled, he had been the one who had given her a keyblade.

Feeling a little regret?

The 16 year-old pondered blurting out more incredulous denials – What hair? Why does my hair need cutting? – Yet decided both of them had had enough of announcing the apparent. Once more he allowed himself to be led by the redhead, and sat down on the edge of his bed which was currently unmade (and would be for as long as he remained in _this_ household, again). Kairi crawled up behind him, tucking her long, thin legs beneath her as dainty as a cat. She kneeled, poised and ready to snip, snip away all of Riku's troubles – at the moment, his hair.

Riku still looked annoyed while his friend was content at him succumbing to her newly acquired skills in hair-cutting. Truthfully, it did not take much to be able to cut hair – as long as it got shorter, then everything was okay.

She nearly had the steel blade touching the cornflower blue cascade when Riku twitched his head a little to talk, ruining her position. With a soft and vaguely frustrated sigh, she had to start over again.

"Are you cutting Sora's hair after mine, or has he already been checked off of your to-do list?" Kairi shook her head as a no, remembered he couldn't see it, and spoke up.

"Sora's hair doesn't need to be cut. It's fine as it is. Yours, on the other hand, looks like Christina Aguilera's old 'do." Those two outspoken claims aroused a more heated reaction from Riku, causing the girl to further pause her work.

"What! His hair defies gravity. Those spikes could be as lethal of a weapon as your scissors. And I do _not_ look like that singer chick." His brawny arms folded over his chest in a stubborn, final way, and Kairi lifted her other hand to muffle a giggle.

"I never said you did. Be quiet, please, if you don't want me to accidentally nick you." Riku could have sworn he heard visual italics on 'accidentally.'

Eventually the crescendo of whispers made from the scissors in motion induced relaxation onto the two of them. Riku shed his tension of animosity similar to how he was shedding his hair and Kairi shed her caution of actually hurting the former as she dug herself further into the art of hair cutting. Along with the tentative then more sporty music of the composition, Riku imagined the flicking of her fragile wrist, the clicking of her delicately curved thumb and index finger as they held the complex machine that was both wedge and lever in a teacup grip. Snippets of hair like flower petals drifted down, dead, blending in with the pale coloured sheets of the bed and vanishing.

Not ten minutes into the performance, Kairi's movements gradually slowed. Her brimming cobalt eyes were fixed on the back of Riku's head, tracing the lines of each strand of hair that gently swept out at the tips, due to her fancy thinning technique. She was suddenly in love with his hair.

"It's so fine, like silk . . ." She murmured, as if in a trance. Her fingers extended to touch it.

"Done?" Riku inquired, obviously having not heard her fawning. His voice seemed to make her snap out of her reverie.

"Oh." Blink. "Yes." The girl turned her shoulder slightly, rummaging through the black pack she had slung over her other one and found a mirror (since Riku lacked one in his room and at her own courtesy she would not make him walk to the bathroom when he was full of digesting potato chips). Halting protest, her arm curled around Riku's to hold it up in front of him. He examined his new hair with a brand of satisfaction (it was slightly longer than how he had it a year before, but not by so much). The mirror's lens switched views, now showing Kairi's smiling face behind him. He smiled back ever so slightly, provoking her lips to stretch wider than his could probably ever reach.

"Do you like it?" Her question was dribbled with maple syrup, drizzling over his ears, sensitive to the high concentration of sugary sweetness.

Riku wasn't focused on his hair now. He was still watching Kairi's face in the other half of the mirror. Her pale, pretty face.

"Yes. Very much."

"See," She giggled just like when they were younger, "I knew you would."

He somehow knew it too. Maybe just gazing upon that cherubic façade had been proof from the beginning, before it was seen hovering above his doorstep, even back to its very origin of existence.

_I could love you forever, _Riku thought.

_I always thought the same, _Kairi's expression read.

He felt fingers trailing down the locks of hair at his shoulders, and then weave into his hand. He held onto it soundly, like life support, as they silently observed how much they had changed – and in the end, remained the same, after all.

a**.u **t**h**o**r **'**s **n**.o **t**e**;;  
I know the sentence structure of this is horrible – dreadful – and confusing. I believe I was either lost or was trying to prove a point (to which is unknown to me at the moment and will most likely be forever until I am 80 and apparently still playing Kingdom Hearts, which by then will be KH57 or something along the lines of that). The whole thing is even more devastating, since the dialogue was bland and… well, just _lame_. But what the hey. The pairing makes up for my writing incompetence.


	3. fighting dance

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**_e_ T E R N A L  
**kairiku collection x;  
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**iii** . _fighting dance _;;

The pillar of Heartless grew and grew, swelling profusely until the pathway within The World That Never Was was eventually completely blocked off by a pulsing, writhing wall of inky shadows. The sight made her gorge rise and temporarily cut off the oxygen from her trachea to her brain from a blinding rush of fear, sending a shudder throughout her entire anatomy. How was she and Riku going to get to Sora this way? How did he even manage fighting these bestial creatures with their spasmodic black bodies and globular moon yellow eyes without losing his sanity?

Watching the Heartless multiply in a matter of seconds with widening eyes, she was terrified; but notwithstanding Kairi was determined to reach her friend. She clutched the chrome keyblade now with both hands (its grip was somehow reassuring that way and made her feel slightly more in control) and looked over to the side at Riku in the form of the man who had once reigned over his soul and life. He was poised and ready to fight, but there was a hesitance drowning his posture. He saw her watching him – waiting for a 'go,' perhaps – and lowered his weapon a few inches.

"What are we going to do?" The redhead whispered miserably, desperateness shining on her pale face, seemingly lighter in the sterling surroundings. She'd do anything for the two boys of her childhood, even if it meant getting near those repulsive creatures. Hurt once by them before, maybe it'd be like breaking a bone – it's stronger and less fragile after it heals. However, there was one little problem. The girl could not simply take the easy way out and throw a stick at them to divert their attention so the path would be clear and the teens could pass through. No, saving her friend would have to be sacrificial. _I've made it this far. The rest will be like cake, right?_

Riku's lips barely moved, but his voice was strong and undisputed and his mind made up. "We fight."

The word of violence stirred a sinking feeling in her. It was exactly what she had been dreading. _Thanks._ _I love you too, Riku. _

"But Riku, I don't know _how_! I can't fight!" She promptly yelled in protest; hearing it played back in her ears, her tone was wrung with complaint and she sounded like a wuss. Unless he could give her a three-second lesson on offensive and defensive combat skills, she was Doomed and Dead, the fated D and D. The Heartless were relentless in their advancement and their surplus was grotesquely huge. The smoky essence of failure began to settle in like years of acrid dust: She had failed Riku for not knowing how to swing an oversized key and hit its target, and had failed Sora because now she'd never be able to see him again. _And I've waited so long for this day . . ._

Fortunately, Riku always had an alternative plan. That was why she looked up to him – admired him, even; it was as if his strength, power and fortitude was even more apparent in the strange body he had obtained. He offered comfort, but not in the way she would originally think of. Riku wasn't about soft touches, kind words and caring embraces. He was a source of information that brought assurance with the truth.

"Then don't think of it as a fight, Kairi. Think of it as a dance."

The two hesitated, both never expecting such insight to issue from Riku's knowledge. He paused, his face a disarrayed puzzle, shoulders slanting in a shrug. Kairi's expression remained thoughtful and retrospective. Why hadn't she compared the two seemingly contrasting words together before? Too many years she had spent watching Sora and Riku's scuffles, the clacking of wooden swords echoing in her ears and permanently leaving their marks on her mind. She had never viewed their competitions as anything but brutal shows of strength – never even thought to consider them as a dance. But it _could_ be. The metaphor wasn't that unbelievable, after all.

A smile blessed her thin lips, and she raised her weapon to salute her friend. Riku was unnerved by the gesture, wondering what exactly it was that he had said to make her in such disturbingly placate good cheer.

"A dance," She confirmed, startling contradicting timbres of both sincerity and frivolity in her voice. In an instant, she was a blur of salmon-and-cream movement, swirling like a slender whirlpool towards the blockade of shadows. The erected blade in her hands became flexible, bending every which way to dematerialize the Heartless in a flash of obsidian. The flowers designed on the keyblade's hilt sprouted into a bouquet fluttering silently as she whirled and twirled, short skirt changing into an elegant train that rippled in the self-created wind. Kairi metamorphosed into the star of the dance floor, illuminated in the spotlight. She was fiercely beautiful mirrored in Riku's temporary orange lenses, like a previously captured feline set free.

After his initial shock dispersed, Riku followed suit in attack, but not nearly as magnificently as Kairi had lunged herself into battle. He could shift his footing all he wanted while slashing at his enemies, but Kairi would always be the true dancer, now and forever. When the last Heartless was reduced to a pile of sporadically trembling matter, the ballerina was exhausted. He caught her as she fell, dipping backwords in his supporting limber arms for a moment (_A common dance move_, Riku mused) and gently brought her back up to lean against his chest. She sighed into the steely line of his torso, turning her cheek against the smooth leather of his coat and closing her eyes. She could breathe in the musk the form gave off and still it would be Riku's scent, telling her that though he looked like a stranger, he was not one and she was safe again.

"You did great," His quiescent voice of approval floated into her ears, leveling out all her sore and aching spots. The large hands on her back were an alleviating and welcomed pressure. She remembered all the times when he had been this close to her no more than a year before, when her heart had been in limbo and her sense of awareness supposedly paralyzed. During that state of unconsciousness, she had wisps of memories of feeling. She had known Riku was there. Riku had known that she had been there, too, for those celebrated moments of when a finger might have twitched or when she breathed deeply meant that she had been alive – alive and right beside him as she was now. Kairi also retained fragments of recollections such as when she had been transported in Riku's brawny arms, maybe because Sora had seen her being taken away from him in that manner.

She felt her will to remain conscious slipping. Nothing more had to be done. _Let me sleep and be with you_, she wished, whispering something else before her senses blinked out.

"Hold me like you used to."

The girl went lax against him, the only thing about her that was not in hibernation being the beating of her heart. He absent-mindedly gazed down upon her and stroked the top of her carmine head like he used to when she was waiting in Neverland. Then he picked her up and held her like he used to, using the crook of one of his arms as a bar against the back of her shoulders and the other beneath the silky bend of her knees.

So he carried her, a dainty slump in his arms, as a groom would cart his bride to their doorstep after a wedding. It didn't seem quite so much like he was just carrying her to Sora anymore. Each step caused him to descend further into the bleak black heart of the nonexistent world, each distance losing its charm as he grew nearer. The girl he felt partial to began to fade from his attainment, bitterness and remorse shifting to what inevitable scenario would lie ahead. It was all suddenly rather unromantic, as if he was heading towards his own funeral. And that was a decidedly unattractive duty in and of itself, indeed.

a**.u **t**h**o**r **'**s **n**.o **t**e**;;  
Ahaha, Riku's jealous of a certain someone because he's going to steal his girl away from him. Once more, Riku's reduced to just being the delivery boy. ;.;

Leave the goodies.


	4. mittens

_To Jessica ( Tatikara ), for Christmas. _♥

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_**e**_** T E R N A L  
**kairiku collection x;  
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**iv** ._ winter _( mittens );;

It was climatically incorrect for the tropical region of Destiny Islands to receive snow in the winter ( or any sort of precipitation otherwise ), but sometimes the outside degrees still dropped to a chronic 58º Fahrenheit that the islanders were not used to. The frigid air had sent Riku's mother fretting over her sensitive son ( "Mom, I just have pale skin and _sunburn_ easily – I'm not going to get frostbite when it isn't even freezing outside." ), so when she got back from the market one afternoon, she had a plastic grocery bag waiting for him.

He stared at the translucent sack before him, like an iced-over pond spectacle that they had never seen before on the Islands, wondering what was inside it. One part of him hoped ( _Cookies_? ); the other part dreaded.

She stood before her bright turquoise-eyed child, hands placed impatiently on her hips. "Well, go on. Open it."

Not wanting to worry his mother any longer ( or himself ), Riku dug through the bag, his ears twitching at the unpleasant rustling sound the thin plastic made. His treasure was resting on his opened hands, then, barely fitting.

In his hands was a pair of oversized mittens. That wasn't the only sorry part about them – that his parent could not find the right size for a child – but they were also made out of multicoloured rainbow material; material that looked suspiciously scratchy. One thought rang in his mind like a silent, contempt revelation over the tacky mittens: _Blaringly homosexual._

His wide eyes looked up slowly at his mother.

"Think of it as an early Christmas present."

If this was her idea of presents for him, then he absolutely did not want to know what else he was getting as Christmas gifts, for once in his youthful life.

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Today it was a chilling 57º, so of course his mother demanded him to wear his new mitts to school. He begrudgingly put them on, but 'accidentally' left them in his room as a clever attempt not to be burdened by the sinful things for that school day. However, before he slipped out the door, she caught him red-handed – not rainbow-handed. She glared at him until he stomped back up the stairs and fetched the flamboyant mittens, which he had stuffed beneath his bed in attempt to hide all evidence of this crime.

Normally he would utter a "Bye, Mom" and wave his hand in departure, but today he did not feel like lifting that colourfully clothed hand, and instead tromped down the walkway with his back turned to her.

Once he was out of sight, he pulled of the mittens and stuffed them in his backpack, flicking his already sweaty hands. It was ridiculous to wear mittens when it wasn't even in the 40s outside. Riku scowled all the way to school, alone because his friends were regulars on the morning school bus. His mother, even though her delusional mind believed it was sleeting, hailing and snowing outside, refused to let him take the bus to school.

During the school day, he kept the gloves hidden in his backpack, locked up safely from the world in his steely silver locker.

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It didn't take him a long time to realize that his mom was going to kill him.

Yes, he had done it. Riku had 'accidentally' lost one of his mittens. It was probably rotting in the boy's bathroom now, with all the acidic fumes deteriorating its . . . erm, lovely colourful pattern.

Once he opened the doors to the outside, ready to embark on his treacherous, guilty journey home ( while muttering curses in his head ), he was suddenly hit with a gust of cold wind that fluttered the scarf of the girl beside him. Another one, and it slipped off her neck entirely, flying like a pink serpent away in the sky. Her friend shrieked with disdain, but the girl ( _Selphie Tilmitt_, if he remembered correctly, in the grade below him – she sometimes hung out with Kairi ) only laughed. "Don't worry, I've got plenty more at home." She smiled at Riku, who was left staring after the waving banner of a scarf, growing smaller and smaller as it gained distance away from the school building. "Merry Christmas, Riku!"

While she skipped off, he was struck with an epiphany. Christmas. That was right . . . it was the last day of school. He was officially on break ( 'Winter Break,' as they, the PC police of the school district, called it ), and he still needed to get his friends presents. There were only a few days left . . .

He began his walk home, stuffing his hands surely into his pockets and lowering his head from the oncoming gushes of bitter wind. They reminded him of the surf's waves, only colder. Wind, water, earth – they were all similar when you came down to it. Strands of platinum hair swept across his face persistently, tickling his nose like snowflakes. Now he was beginning to regret losing that other mitten; however, he did not search for the one still in his backpack. He would brave the cold like a _real_ man.

It was then, after a minute of walking, that he heard the soft pitter-patter of boots on the concrete behind him. Someone was following him. He kept on going, appearing to ignore the sounds of the stalker.

The footsteps grew louder as they grew nearer – he had deliberately begun to quicken his pace, though not noticeably by those who weren't attentive in the act of sneaking up upon others, so that they would quicken theirs, too, and make the encounter over faster than intended. Now they were right behind him, just a breath away . . . he saw the shadow of arms stretching out towards him, and then he spoke in a nonchalant voice.

"Hi, Kairi."

The arms stopped moving to encircle his torso. They wouldn't fit anyway – she was far too small and short, and his backpack was literally overflowing.

"Aww, Riku, you're no fun," She pouted. "I was going to sneak up on you!"

"Technically, you already were, and you didn't do a very good job of it."

She walked up beside him, and the first thing he saw was a nest of deep crimson hair, like blood on freshly fallen snow. Her lower lip poked out ever-so-slightly, as she looked up with great globes of violet-tinted sapphire eyes with a hopeful gleam contained within them. "But I did better than last time, right?"

"Yeah – you did much better," He gave in, freeing a hand to tousle her hair. The moment it touched air again, it turned cold – the brief second it was resting on top of her warm head was a gift.

She beamed at him, giddy from praise like a pet dog.

"But you need to work on being _quieter_. Silence and stealth is the key." Riku wasn't all compliments – he normally said something bad, but not to his friends ( the exception was Sora, when he was pissed at him ). In big-brother mode, he put in a bit of praise and a healthy dose of criticism: _that_ was how you learned. Sometimes teachers – or parents – just never got that.

"Maybe I should start sword-fighting with you guys?" She smiled so that her eyes closed like tilted parenthesis marks.

"_No_."

"Hee – come on, Riku, I was only joking."

They walked for thirty more seconds in silence when she began to shiver.

"Don't tell me you're cold," He challenged.

"The mayor said it was going to be in the 40s today – maybe even get down to freezing. Wouldn't it be nice if it snowed, Riku?" She asked excitedly, tipping her head and momentarily forgetting about her uncomfortable condition.

"Snow," He snorted skeptically, "in Destiny Islands? Kairi, you're crazy."

The redhead gazed off into the distance, her hands behind her back. "But wouldn't it be great . . . if we could go somewhere where it _could _snow. Just like in my dreams."

The ominous, far-off hint in her voice cautioned him into speaking about it. "You're still having those dreams?"

"Mmhm . . ." She lowered her gaze. "The dreams of that place. Maybe . . . maybe it's where I came from. Where I was born, before I came to the Islands."

Kairi had never been that interested in her past – she had washed up on shore one night during a rare phenomenon of a meteor shower, her memories erased. She was content to stay here on Destiny Islands for the most part, until recently – when they came up with the idea to build a raft. Riku had always been more interested. What if she came from another _world_? That's what he had begun to believe, thanks to Kairi.

Little did they know that she did indeed come from another world, and that one day they would get to visit it. They would also go to a place of eternal snow – Riku and Sora would take her there. But that was all in the future, and they were not clairvoyant children.

She shivered again, nearly giving him his own set of goose bumps. Having paused a moment in walking, it put her slightly behind him, so that she could see his backpack.

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"That," She pointed, "sticking out of your backpack."

_Oh, God. _He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bag wasn't completely zipped, and that a tuft of rainbow cloth was hanging out of it like some blaring, provocative sign.

"Oh, that's—" _That's nothing,_ he was going to say, but before he could, Kairi was standing on her tippy-toes to pull the forbidden mitten out of the depths of his backpack.

Kairi was rolling it over in her tiny porcelain hands – if it was nearly twice too large for him, it had to be three times oversized for her.

"Pretty!"

_No it's not, _he thought to himself, but since Kairi deemed it pretty, he felt a flutter of hope in his heart. Instead, he said nothing.

Without asking, Kairi pulled it onto his bare hand, and then slipped her hand into it as well. He felt himself shiver, but not from the cold – just from the fact that they were holding hands beneath that gaudy rainbow mitten.

- - - - - - - - - - x - - - - - - - - - -

Sitting in Sora's living room, they nibbled on Christmas cookies they had made the day before and eyed the wrapped presents in front of them. Sora's gift to Riku, of course, wasn't wrapped as skillfully as Kairi's. He opened hers first, and at the same time, Kairi opened the gift she had gotten from Riku.

"What'd you get, Kairi?" Sora asked, peeking. But then something in the corner of his eye drew his attention away from her present. Something colourful.

"What is _that_, Riku?" This was far more incredulous sounding.

Riku held up a pair of mittens, identical to the ones he had gotten from his mother. He was at loss of words. Kairi looked over and smiled.

"I got you a new pair, since you lost the other one."

". . Thanks, Kairi. I appreciate it." He suspected that his smile was too close-lipped.

In the meanwhile, Sora had snatched Riku's gloves and attempted to put them on his feet. Sora had big feet, so of course they fit. Kairi then pulled out her gift.

More mittens, of the same variety.

"I got you them because you thought they were pretty."

"And they are!" She cuddled them close to her chest. "Now we'll be matching when we go to school again!"

Too bad. He had hoped that they'd have an excuse to hold hands again.

Now Sora opened his.

". . Mittens?"

"I thought you wouldn't like them. Now I guess I was wrong," Riku explained.

The only girl there beamed at the concept. "Everyone'll know that we're friends, now!"

"Not that they don't already." Friends, brought together by the gay mittens.

"Guys," Said Sora's mother, rushing in from outside. "You'll never believe it." There were white flecks in her hair, causing disbelief to flow through his thoughts.

The trio stampeded to the window, pressing their mittened hands and noses to the glass. They breathed hot air on the cold glass, fogging it and nearly obstructing their view of the snow that fell outside.

"It's . . ." Kairi gasped.

"Snowing!" Finished Sora.

They all three ran outside, the door swinging behind them. Riku was the last one out – he wandered as if in a daze towards the center of the yard, stopping with a hand shoved in his pocket and his head tilting upward towards the sky. Delicate snowflakes landed on his cheeks, his nose, melting and rolling down his smooth face like tears.

Kairi, after cheering and celebrating with jubilee, walked up beside him. She mimicked his pose, and he moved his aquamarine eyes to the side, seeing how artfully and innocently the snowflakes flecked her burgundy eyelashes. He took her hand, and they stood in the first snow together.

a**.u **t**h**o**r **'**s **n**.o **t**e**;;  
( _mini speech_ )

( of course you can skip this, and just go down to the little review box. heehee. )

As you may have caught up above after the ceaseless rambling of my story, this particular drabble was written for my friend Jessica for Christmas. I was considering making it a separate Kairiku story like _fallen_, which I wrote for her birthday, but decided that I _really really really _needed to update this collection. I mean, really really really. I was shocked to see that it was number 38 down on my story list of 44. No, I lied. I wasn't shocked – I knew damn well that I hadn't picked up this collection, or even tried to, for months, maybe even a year. I'm scared to look at the last updated date. Yes, _over_ a year, now that I correct myself. I am blinded by the 14 months of dust that this has gathered. Oh OTP, whatever made you deserve my negligence?

I wasn't surprised, either, that all my other collections and chaptered stories were way down the line as well. I've been too caught up seeking muse from short oneshots and drabbles from random dust bunnies that I discover, exploring through new fandoms, that I forgot that these epic adventures even existed. I thought that when Jessica gave me 100 new themes for my Kairiku collection, I'd magically gain _some_ sort of muse for at least _one _of them. I got faint ideas, but no desire to write them. People threatened me to update, like I AM the Random Idiot. Now, as Christmas grows near ( precisely two days away, my friends – or is it one? I'm so bad at counting ), I finally try to revive and recover my lovely obsession. I think Zanisha inspired me to do it with her adorable in character Kairiku drabbles. Though I know that I can never become as professional as her, I can at least try.

This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment idea – at least, I didn't have it just today. I actually found this one scribbled in my old mini sketchbook that I used to bring to class in 10th grade. It was a cutesy idea, but I couldn't write it, even though the time I came up with it was during winter, one year before. I lacked the inspiration. And since I scanned through the list of 100 and saw nothing Christmassy or even worth writing at the moment except for theme number 73, winter ( har har, how original ), I chose this one easily. Perhaps I could incorporate some more depth into it, and make the sketch just a beginning, and the rest I can pull from my head.

And another thing – if the last drabble I wrote was from 14 months before, then those three must have _sucked_. I was conscious of their suckiness immediately after I published them, but now they probably reek. I feel embarrassed and ashamed for anyone new that comes to read these and starts off with the first three. Ick. And yet, I am also thinking contradictory thoughts: that _this _one probably reeked even _worse_. It's because I'm so rusty, unable to master the tragic complexity of Riku, and the sweet, simple kindness of Kairi because I am rendered inexperienced at it. Hopefully it wasn't _too_ bad.

And now I think that this 'mini speech' is becoming as long as the oneshot itself, so I hope all you loyal Kairiku fans ( and newcomers ) enjoyed yourselves. Merry Christmas.

Hopefully next time won't be so far away.

_Constance Greene_.


End file.
